


like i'm trying to hold smoke

by lifeorbeth, lumberchicken



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5241044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeorbeth/pseuds/lifeorbeth, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumberchicken/pseuds/lumberchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of the world is here - a pandemic, a plague: wiping out humanity in waves, in fits and starts, and finally one by one. Sarah Manning, an asymptomatic carrier, a survivor, a child, has struck out on her own, abandoning her one (begrudging) ally in favor of a hopeless mission. Back to where it all began, back to where she learned her fate and those she unwittingly left to die in her wake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i think it drowned in holy water

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [last night they said the fire had spread](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2292206) by [lumberchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumberchicken/pseuds/lumberchicken). 



> This is not the original; this is not the beginning. There should be a link somewhere to the original work, "last night they said the fire had spread" by the lovely lumberchicken. I don't know why I haven't posted this on AO3 before, but now I am. All of this is written with permission from and in collaboration with the original author.

When she turns back after several blocks, Sarah can still see the outline of the hotel towering above the neighboring buildings. She can see the room she and Rachel shared on the top floor. She can almost imagine that Rachel is on the east-facing balcony, staring out and wondering where Sarah had gone. But she scoffs and turns, knowing that Rachel wouldn't really care.

 _Bloody Rachel_ , she thinks with a vehemence she doesn't actually feel, feeling the fierceness of Rachel's need for balance and "getting even." Sarah knows that what she did last night was unforgivable, but she's sick of being stationary. She's restless. Whether or not she's back at one hundred percent - or even seventy-five - is not relevant. She has to move, she has to have a purpose.

Rachel doesn't understand that.

Rachel hasn't had to do terrible things out of necessity. Rachel has never watched the life drain out of someone's eyes because of something she's done. Rachel has never faced down her own demons, her fears. Rachel has not stared hopelessness in the face. Rachel has always just resigned herself to waiting and looking down on those who scramble around trying to find themselves. Rachel has never even tried to search.

Sarah, using the tempo of her feet striking pavement as an anchor, drifts back to the hospital from several weeks ago. The day they escaped. She thinks of the acrid smell of blood pervading every room she'd ever been in but theirs.  She thinks of the bloodied fingernails and the leaking eyes and the pale, flaccid skin of everyone they met.

When Sarah had been taken to the exam room, mere days after Rachel almost died from whatever shit they'd given her, she had been plotting. When Dr. Nealon finally came in, he was unrecognizable. His face was gaunt and his skin was graying and his eyes were droopy and leaking yellow pus, and he seemed to be coughing every other word, blood seeping through the paper mask over his mouth and nose. He instructed the nurse to inject her, and Sarah just moved.

The needle went in the crook of her elbow, but Sarah wrenched free before the plunger could go down. She kicked out hard, catching Nealon square in the chest, throwing him completely off balance. He slammed into the wall behind him, cracking his head on the plaster. She remembers the slamming of her heart against her ribcage, the burning racing up her elbow - she remembers the fear of wondering whether or not she moved in time.

The nurse lunged for her, and she grabbed the nearest object: a metal tray with surgical instruments on it. There was an ear-splitting clang as the tray smashed into the nurse's face with enough force to send her sprawling. Sarah didn't stop; she drew a lot of attention. She snatched the fire extinguisher from its hook on the wall, tore Nealon's passcard free of his shirt, and ran.

Anyone who came near received a blow to the head. With each strike, Sarah flinched. With every hit, Sarah's lip grew less steady, her vision less clear, her motions less precise. With every victim, she lost her rage. The only thing keeping her going was desperation.

Now, weeks later, she stops walking, getting a waft of that same death-smell of blood and pus and sweat. Her pack lands on the ground with a thump, and she manages to pull her hair back out of the way just before she vomits. She notices bitterly that not only is she puking her guts up, she's crying as well. _Bloody hell_ , she thinks, spitting into the ditch and rinsing her mouth with bottled water.

She can still feel the give of a skull on the other side of a weapon. The sensation is embedded in her hands, in her arms, in her chest. Her fingers are shaking. And she can't help thinking Rachel wouldn't understand. And also Rachel can't know. Because Sarah is a murderer, whether these people meant her harm or not, she's a murderer. A criminal.

Rachel had spent so much time looking down on Sarah for her recklessness, her abandon. Obviously, Rachel knows that those people they had passed - those corpses - were Sarah's handiwork. Rachel had smirked and nudged the body of an orderly with her foot; the contempt was so palpable there. It makes Sarah sick again.

She heaves and heaves and wonders, as the bile burns her teeth and tongue - the teeth that have clicked against Rachel's, the tongue that has danced with Rachel's - how that bitch could be so cold. Sarah tells herself that Rachel just doesn't understand, that Rachel has spent her whole life devoid of a healthy interaction with people, that Rachel doesn't understand attachment and empathy. Rachel's coldness masks a child; Sarah knows that, and it makes leaving her behind that much harder.

But then Sarah thinks about the other girls at the hospital that Rachel had mentioned before: Danielle and Janika. She thinks about what almost happened to her and Rachel.

After her daring escape, Sarah stumbled through the halls. She'd gotten turned around at some point - perhaps on purpose, she doesn't remember - and the tears in her eyes were clouding her vision. She clipped corners with her hips and elbows, peering through every door she saw. When she drew closer to her wing, she slowed. The name cards had been scratched off the doors, but it didn't matter. When Sarah found the room, she stopped.

The lights were off in that corner of the building, making it doubly hard for Sarah to see into the room. There might have been a shape on far bed, but she couldn't be certain. She swiped Nealon's passcard and yanked on the door handle. The second the door opened, she was blasted with a concentrated wave of that same stench. It was strong enough to make her gag.

She tiptoed into the room, leaving the door hanging open behind her. "Hello?" No response. She approached the figure on the bed, keeping her knees bent and her center of gravity low. Her head was pounding in time with her heart as adrenaline continued to gush through her system. She fought to keep her breathing quiet, just in case.

When she reached the bed, Sarah immediately turned away, burying her face in the crook of her arm and relinquishing her grip on the fire extinguisher, which clattered loudly against the floor and barely missed her toes. The girl in the bed was dead. Her eyes were open, but the color in her irises had leaked away and the rims of her eyes were caked in yellow crud. There was blood dried in the formation of now-flaking streams around her nose and mouth, and her teeth were still stained red. Her fingernails were bloodied and peeling, and blood had seeped through and spread across the sheets beneath her. Her stomach had ballooned outward, and Sarah didn't have any inclination to wonder why.

Sarah merely tugged the sheet free of the other bed and threw it over the girl. She could feel herself shivering, could feel the disgust and the fear. She remembers wondering if this would be their fate - hers and Rachel's - if they stayed. Her stomach rolled, and she fled to the bathroom to empty what little there was to empty. So much death in one place; she was suddenly so very glad to be leaving.

When she returned to the main room, she saw what remained of the other girl. And she was struck by the sad fact that she didn't know which was Danielle and which was Janika. The other girl was hunkered down by the door. There were bloody scratches on the metal from where the girl had apparently tried clawing her way out. Sarah didn't notice it on the way in. The armchair was toppled on its side across the entryway, and Sarah noticed the dents and discolorations in the wall and the door.

This girl hadn't been dead as long. The blood was fresher, and her abdomen hadn't expanded nearly as much. There were scratches on her face and neck, presumably from her own hands. There was somehow blood all around her, smeared onto the floor, her clothes, the walls. Where did it come from? Sarah thought it better not to ask. Instead, she ran. Back to Rachel and back to the prospect of escape.

Sarah shuddered back to the present, wondering how much more dry heaving her already unhealthy body can handle. She decides to take the time to eat breakfast, ripping open a can of sardines and trying not to lose those, too. She combats the developing headache with a few mouthfuls of water and reminds herself again and again why she's going back.

For Beth. For Alison. For Katja. For Cosima. For Tony. For the other kids DYAD had herded together because of stupid shit like when their birthdays are and what medication their parents took for in vitro. For the kids who, if Sarah's suspicions are correct, are currently at risk of being killed by the same people who insist that they're helping. If the scientists are even still alive.

If Sarah has her way, the scientists and the kids and Rachel will all still be alive by the time she gets to DYAD. That could take weeks on foot. She needs a car.


	2. before the kids could tell the dog 'goodbye'

Sarah is hungry and tired and knows she hasn't had enough to eat or sleep without Rachel constantly harping on her about it. But she also knows the importance of movement. There's nothing more imperative than pushing forward, having a goal, and keeping the images of corpses out of her head. The heavy pack cuts into her shoulders and she feels cold sweat dripping in rivulets down her back, but still she attempts to keep her footfalls steady.

She stumbles once. Maybe twice. But she doesn't stop. She isn't ready. She's too close. What if Rachel follows her? What if the sleeping pills she crushed into Rachel's nightly glass of water didn't take? Oh God, Sarah wouldn't be able to deal with her. Not after last night. No.

Sarah picks up the pace, trying to keep herself upright. She battles her impending headache like one swats at angry flies: with squinting eyes and flailing hands. She slips off of the highway and down into the cool shade under an overpass. Free of the sunlight, she allows herself to rest. Finally. Midafternoon is not the best time for walking, she tells herself, insisting that she didn't stop because she could no longer lift her feet off of the pavement, because her vision has been going in and out for ten minutes, because she's hungry and might miss Rachel's freakish scheduling of rest breaks and meals.

Out of the heat of the sun, the wind is biting; Sarah hadn't noticed before. She wraps her jacket tighter around her torso, hugging herself to keep warm. She tears into a can of tuna, glad no one can witness the faces she's pulling as she tries to force down this awful excuse for fish. She washes it down with water. Forces herself to swallow, imagining Rachel's characteristic tut and the belittling, "You have to eat, Sarah." Like Sarah's scum, like Rachel's some superior being.

Sarah throws the empty tuna can as far as she's able, listening as it clatters against the barricade in the median. She pulls out her atlas - she'd kept a spare hidden in the hotel lobby, having gone in with this mission in mind. She eyes the roads, searching for the closest town. She needs a car, and maybe a bed to sleep in; she'd been pampered, after all.

There's some sort of town just another few kilometers up the road, easily within walking distance. She takes a long draught of her water and stows both it and the atlas away in her pack before hoisting herself back up to her feet. _You can do it, Manning_ , she tells herself sternly as she lumbers back up to the raised highway she'd chosen to follow. Though it is very strange to march in the company of only her own thoughts; there's something very lonely about not hearing a second set of footsteps beside hers.

When she finally reaches civilization, she stumbles to the first neighborhood she sees. Picks a house with a small, reasonably new car - it's all about gas mileage to travel as far as she needs to. She hurls her pack through the window, feeling the burning in her arms at the effort. Her head is pounding, and she feels ever-so-slightly unsteady on her feet. She clambers in through the window, using her sleeves to protect her hands from the glass in the frame; she tips over into the room, barely managing to keep her feet beneath her.

She digs in her provisions for her knife, keeping it in hand as she searches the house. She can feel herself swaying dangerously in her fatigue, but she needs to know it's safe before she can relax. It's an old habit. And also common sense. She checks the ground floor first, opening every door, checking every reasonable hiding place, making sure her footfalls are, if not silent, at least quiet. Nothing alive or dead here. She makes her way up the stairs, hugging one side to avoid creaky steps. She does the same in the upstairs hallway, peering into the first door on the left.

There's a form on the bed. She silently says a prayer that she won't have to kill anyone. Not again. She closes the distance slowly, fighting to steady her hand so that her weapon won't be quivering like mad. She braces herself, sucking in a long and silent breath, before leaning out over the shapes - there's two of them, she realizes. She tears away the blanket, knife poised.

Children. Two little girls who had huddled together under the covers to hide from the invisible monster. But Sarah is not a little girl anymore, and she's learning again and again that one can't hide from the end of the world. The girls have the same bloodied faces as Janika and Danielle had, the same weepy, colorless eyes, the same rings of pus. They lack, however, the bloated stomachs. Sarah throws the blanket back on and bites back tears.

They're just kids. Two little kids. Kids like Rachel had been when her parents died mere hours apart. Kids like Sarah had been when Mrs. S stole her and Felix away from Brixton where the epidemic was spreading rapidly. Just kids. Much too young to have the world ripped out from under them. Sarah eases the door shut behind her, and checks the remaining rooms with a distinct resignation. There are no other corpses in the house. When she reaches the last bed, she sinks down on it, dissolving into hot, angry tears.

Sarah doesn't think she's ever cried herself to sleep before. She'd never really been much of a crier. Then again, she'd never been exposed to such devastation before. What little energy she'd had since arriving at the house had drained upon sight of the girls. And so she slept. In a strange bed in a strange house with two dead children sleeping down the hall.

Rachel wouldn't have done it. As cold and ruthless as she is, she would have insisted that there was something wrong with this particular house and forced Sarah to pack up and leave. Sarah's becoming a monster.

When she wakes, it's dark and her stomach is contracting painfully. Disoriented, she reaches down beside her bed, fumbling for the bag she usually keeps there. When she doesn't find it, she opens her eyes and, in her surprise, leaps upright, banging into a bureau. She'd forgotten - for just a split second - that it's no longer her and Rachel, Rachel and her walking until the end of time or wasting away in an abandoned hotel. Instead, it's just her. It always ends that way: Sarah on some personal vendetta and anyone in the way getting cast aside.

Now that she's in a better state of mind, Sarah wonders how she didn't smell it the second she stumbled in the house. The stench of death has pervaded the whole place. Sarah knows she needs to move before she ends up a sniveling mess again. She tears down the stairs so she won't linger in the hall, nearly careening down the last four steps in one go but managing to catch herself on the banister. She drags the pack she'd abandoned in the hall towards the kitchen, digging through the pantry and surrounding cabinets. She stuffs the pack with a few non-perishable foods - and maybe a handful of foods with a long shelf-life - and roots around for bottled water. The garage holds a whole flat-pack of them, and Sarah stuffs as many as she can carry into the pack.

She steals bigger coats from the hall closet, layering a bulky man's leather coat on top of a woman's slimmer wool peacoat. With winter setting in, she'll need it. She piles all of her supplies by the door and sets her sights on finding the car keys. She tears through the foyer and the kitchen, scattering all sorts of personal belongings, telling herself it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, they're dead, they wouldn't care. When she eventually finds them, she's lightheaded from the acrid smell.

She's never driven a car before, but with no one else on the road, she's got plenty of room for error.

The little optimistic thought makes her smile - something small and something which feels so inherently wrong that she has to start packing everything away to distract herself. She takes even more food, stacking it on the floor by the front seat. She stuffs clothes from the master bedroom into a duffel bag. She avoids the girls' room, keeping that door shut tight.

She pauses before she leaves, sending positive energy after the girls, wherever people go when they die. Hoping she won't be joining them anytime soon.


	3. to catch a ghost

Having a car beneath her feels to Sarah like learning to fly. She stumbles - or, in reality, swerves - but with a bit of time and a long, straight road, she's able to finally cover some distance. She has the atlas propped up against the dashboard, her route traced in highlighter. From where she is now, it looks to be about an eight hour trip.

She pushes the speedometer up past eighty when she hits the highway. Straight lines and loose turns are easy. She fiddles with cruise control - somehow managing to make it work. She yearns for the radio, but every station is just static. Eventually, she resigns herself to the silence, thinking back to the long hours of walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Rachel bloody Duncan. This isn't so different.

Except that Rachel isn't here to not speak. And, loathe though she is to admit it, Sarah misses her.

It's for the best, she tells herself, trying not to consider her own treachery. They didn't part on good terms - well, they didn't part on bad terms, either. To be honest, Sarah isn't sure if they parted on any terms at all. They parted like an ocean wave and the sand on a beach: even if they were to meet again, they would be nowhere near the same as when they parted.

Part of her wonders if that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

She pushes the thoughts of Rachel from her mind, chanting the names of those she's going back for. Aryanna, Katja, Beth, Alison, Cosima, Tony. Over and over. She can do something good for once. She can help them. They're stronger together; Rachel couldn't see that, so Rachel had to be left behind. Sarah tries to convince herself that Rachel was toxic, that Rachel didn't understand what it takes to survive, that Rachel didn't even like her. But her chest still aches when she thinks about drugging her to get away. She couldn't even face her to say goodbye. She just… left.

It's a vicious cycle. There are only so many things to dwell on in Sarah's world: Rachel, the people she's killed, the victims she's seen, and the other kids she's trying to save. Eventually, she settles back, trying to focus only on the road in front of her. It's empty, only the occasional abandoned car to avoid. Everyone must have died in their own homes. In their own beds. She shakes her head violently, drifting over into the next lane before correcting herself.

"Focus, Sarah," she mutters.

 

The sun is dipping down below the horizon. The days really are getting shorter. She watches the color change in the rearview mirror, slipping from clear blue to orange to pink to gray to navy until, finally, black. Her knees are stiff, but she refuses to stop, instead just slowing down and reaching into her bag for a bottle of water and something that might resemble a meal.

She drives with one hand and uses the other to tear into the bread - bread! - that will probably be the last slice of bread she'll ever eat. As she sky goes dark and she tries to figure out how to turn on the headlights, Sarah wonders how long she's been awake and how much farther she has to go. The food is helping, but her head is heavier with every passing second.

She blasts the air conditioning, remembering what she heard once about it being much harder to sleep when you're cold. She has to at least hit the city limit before stopping for the night. There's a stop she needs to make before she reaches DYAD. One last thing to check up on.

She takes periodic sips of water, giving her something to do other than stare straight ahead and try not to hit any obstacles. The closer she gets to the city, the more cars there are to avoid. She blinks often, scrunching her eyes shut and widening them to keep her vision in focus. _Just a little farther_ , she tells herself.

 

She comes to with one hell of a headache, something wet on the side of her face. Her vision is out of phase with the movement of her head, making the headache that much worse. Her movements are sluggish, and her thoughts are slower. Her limbs are heavy and resistant to movement.

She blinks, turning her head, trying to clear the haze from her vision. It takes a long few moments for her brain to kick into gear, but all sensation returns in a rush. She crashed the goddamn car. She drags herself free of the wreckage, her knees turning to jelly. She slams down on the pavement, her teeth knocking together. Cuts on her hands from the shattered glass, scraped knees from the fall, lacerations on her face from the impact. Grasping the car door, she hauls herself upright again, fighting gravity to keep to her feet.

She drags her belongings free, strapping the heavy pack to her back, stumbling. It's like she's punch-drunk. She hasn't felt that way in a very long time. She latches onto that thought, using it to center herself. She establishes her name, her identity, her past, her present, her mission. She shoves the extra provisions into the pack, scanning the road for cars other than her own and the one she hit.

Nothing else within sight.

She guzzles down three quarters of a water bottle and, atlas in hand, begins to walk. Her gait is a mixture of shuffling and limping and stumbling for quite a while until she's numb to the pain and her legs begin working properly. The pack is heavy and weighs her down, pulling her shoulders back until she's dangerously close to tipping over backwards. But she continues.

She walks and walks and walks until walking is all she remembers. She keeps imagining a voice telling her to stop, another telling her to keep going. Two voices fighting in her mind. Both female. One cold, quiet: "Stop, Sarah, what do you hope to accomplish by walking yourself to death? Rest, eat something. You shouldn't have been driving that long. No wonder you crashed. You and your irrational ideas." The other hot, impassioned: "You're so close, Sarah - so close. If you manage to make it in time, you could save lives. You could - you could change what's left of the world. Just push through. I know it hurts, I know, but it's only a little farther."

Unsure which to heed, Sarah just keeps going. The atlas is in her hands, but she hasn't looked at it. The roads are familiar now and her feet are leading better than her head could. Her brain feels like it's stuffed with cotton: muffled and dry and essentially empty.

Buildings are rising up around her and she's no longer on the highway. She doesn't remember leaving the straightaway, but she takes in the familiar landmarks with an air of nostalgia. Queasiness settles deep in her stomach, burrowing down to wait. She grips the straps of the pack to not only alleviate some of the weight from her shoulders but also to keep her hands from quivering.

When she reaches her destination, her knees almost give out again. She steadies herself on the short fence and steps up towards the house: S's house. As she pushes open the door, it strikes her as odd how empty it feels. Everything looks the same: their coats are still hanging on the pegs by the door, there is still a teapot and mugs on the kitchen table, the piano sits uncovered in the den. It's all so very… home. Sarah's home.

She'd never wanted to think of it as home when she lived here. But now she would like nothing more than to go back to before the epidemic took over their lives in North America like it had back in England. She would give almost anything so they could have gotten away just a little sooner.

The pack hits the floor in the foyer with a resounding thud. Sarah winds her way up the stairs, stepping into the narrow upstairs hallway. She turns, out of habit, to check the bedrooms. No bodies in any of the beds. She collapses on her own, at the same time immensely relieved and dreadfully concerned. They could be anywhere.

She decides to spend the remainder of her night here, amongst the memories and the ghosts. The old house creaks with the biting late-autumn wind, and Sarah imagines ethereal feet pacing up and down the hall like sentinels, keeping watch so she can sleep. That's what she used to tell Felix when he woke her with claims of nightmares. She can still feel his warmth as he crawled under her blankets with her and wrapped himself in her arms to fall asleep.

They're only memories, but it's enough. She drifts off with his scent in her nose and that long-absent warmth resting on her chest.


	4. the army had to hold the line

There it is, looming ahead of her: the DYAD Institute, in all of its steel and glass glory. It looks somehow more impressive in the now-desolate environment, with the knowledge wedged deep in Sarah's bones that there could very well be people alive in there.

Sarah's boots crunch on the unkempt leaves that have flooded the street. Some still cling to the trees around the institute, and Sarah can't help but think about what it looked like when she first came here a few months ago. The heat of summer-turning-fall, the trees still in their prime, the bustle of people moving in and out with an energy just shy of panicked. She remembers the vice-grip on her arm as she was ushered inside, trying to fight for her freedom through the handcuffs on her wrists and the two orderlies that were practically dragging her. She remembers thinking of this place as a cage.

How little she knew.

The silence is eerie. Sarah is used to birds and the movement of small animals in her travels, but there is nothing here. The only noise is the wind stirring through the trees and the light tapping of her boots on the pavement. She adjusts her pack on her shoulders and approaches the lobby doors.

The glass is broken but still clinging to the frame, looking like an intricate web. Sarah can't help but reach out and brush it with her fingers - lightly so as not to cut herself. The perfect façade has shattered; even DYAD cannot withstand the end of the world. She steps inside, small shards of glass crunching under her feet. The power is out, making the building look so much bigger. And emptier.

Sarah proceeds slowly to the stairwell, climbing to the third floor, where she and the other asymptomatic carriers had lived. The miracle children. The survivors of the apocalypse. The room closest to the stairwell is the one that had been hers - hers and Rachel's. It looks like they never left. The beds are made; Rachel's laptop still sits on the desk; the books are still in Rachel's preferred orderly arrangement; Sarah's old clothes still sit, neatly folded as per the orderlies' preference, in the dresser by the far bed. But the room is cold, and there is no Rachel to make it even marginally warmer.

Sarah leaves her pack by the bed and takes her knife in hand, hoping beyond all hope she won't have to use it. She tightens and loosens her grip periodically, the fingers on her free hand tapping restlessly against her leg. She skips the rooms she knows are empty - because the scientists kept two or three rooms between each pair - though she does glance in the windows.

The next room is Katja and Aryanna's. Sarah tugs on the door handle; the electronic locks are no longer functioning. Knife gripped tightly, she enters the room. It's identical to hers and Rachel's - all the way down to the lack of obvious life. She circumnavigates the room, taking her time and checking any hiding places. Expecting corpses anywhere and everywhere. But there is nothing.

She can't stop the sigh that shudders through her. At first there's relief, but then her chest constricts. Where are they?

Sarah opens door after door in the residential wing. No one. Beth and Alison's room: empty. Tony's room: empty. Helena's cell: empty. Where the hell are they?

Sarah decides to sweep the building, moving floor by floor from top to bottom. It isn't until she's gone through the top two floors that she finally finds anything beyond an empty lab or office. It's the fifth door on the third floor down. A lab of some sort; she doesn't really know. Different machines rest one on top of another on tables along the walls and in the center of the room; there are several computers. Of course, it's all useless now. She peers around tables, and wanders into an adjoining storage space. There, on the ground, is a person.

The body - presumably female from the size - is sprawled face-down on the tile, arms and legs splayed. Sarah crouches down by the head  and, covering her mouth with a sleeve to lessen the stench, heaves the body over onto its back. Sarah closes her eyes and turns her face away, biting down hard on her lips to keep herself from making more than a choked sound. When she finally musters the courage to turn back, she tries to keep herself from being sick.

 _Ask and answer questions_ , she tells herself, channeling her inner ice queen since she can't have the real one.

Cause of death? Looks like slash or stab wounds. Where? Throat and chest. Struggle? Fading bruises on the forearms and face. Sick? Sarah checks the eyes - still brown - and the hands - nails still painted with sleek, dark polish. Not sick. Murdered.

Finally, she allows herself to look at the face, to really see it. Aryanna Giordano. Sarah hadn't spoken with her much, but she was one of them. She was one of the "miracle kids" - as Beth had dubbed them. And now she's dead.

The blood on the floor isn't quite browned; definitely more recent than all the other victims she'd seen in her travels. There must still be people here. Sarah rocks back on her heels and looks up, casting her eyes anywhere but on Aryanna. She fears what will happen if she stumbles on the person who did this. How ready is she to defend her life? After the hospital? After her time with Rachel?

Does she have the energy to fight more?

She clambers to her feet, moving through the rest of the building with purpose. It isn't just about her. If there are more people here, she will find them.

 

Sarah started stumbling on scientists on the floor below Aryanna: some victims of the epidemic, some of homicide. The last place left to check is the old wing. Defensible, dark, the most maze-like portion of the building. It would be Sarah's choice for a home base. She treads lightly - a skill acquired from years of sneaking around - and, at the bottom of the staircase, stops. She listens hard for any sound of movement, any words, anything at all.

There's some sound, muffled, muted by distance and the presence of closed doors. Sarah tiptoes down the hall, her heart beating rapidly, unsure whether to soar with excitement or flutter in terror. She rounds on the first door, but there's no window to look through. She's completely at the mercy of anyone who might be here. And, much to her dismay, the noises have stopped.

She pries open the first door. Another lab. Three scientists. Two plague victims, one mutilated. All three arranged in a gruesome tableau in the center of the floor. Quick scan. No movement, nothing worth taking right this moment. Her world narrows to the sound of her breathing in her head. She goes back to the hallway.

She presses her ear against the next large metal door, straining her ears for any indication of life. Any sort of warning about what might be on the other side. She eases it open as quietly as she can, slips inside. Another scientist: plague. Next room, nothing audible from the outside. Empty. Sarah rounds a corner. Another silent, empty room. Another. Another. Another.

Two doors left. Sarah leans up against the metal, pressing her ear against it. Is this it? There's a hiss, maybe someone shushing someone else? Sarah reaches hesitantly for the door handle and -

"Don't move!"

Something cold pressed against the side of her head. Her knife clatters to the floor. Her hands are quivering. Oh God, oh God. She's going to die.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The voice is shaking. And familiar.

"Beth?" When there's no immediate response, Sarah jumps on it, turning very slowly and pressing back against the cold metal, keeping her hands between them. "Beth, it's me. It-it's Sarah."

Beth stares down at her, expressionless. The gun - holy shit, where did she get a gun? - is tremulous in her grip. The silence stretches and Beth still makes no move to back down. Her hair is wild in its wispy bun, her eyes wide, her clothes dingy and hanging off of her impossibly thin frame.

Sarah cringes back into the door, feeling the frame cutting into the space between her shoulder blades. "You're not gonna shoot me, are ya?" When she doesn't get an answer, she blinks and prods a bit farther. "Beth?"

The gun drops down to her side, Beth's arm falling limp. A held breath whooshes free of Sarah's lungs, and it looks like Beth is experiencing a similar sensation, judging by how she shrinks. Beth says nothing, doesn't move. She just stares blankly at Sarah for a long moment.

Sarah slowly drags herself up to her feet, keeping her hands stretched between them. She takes a tentative step towards the other girl - Beth, who she'd met in passing once or twice during their recreational period, who she'd watched run laps around the courtyard like she could outrun the sickness, who had an easy smile and a casual wit, who was a natural and charismatic leader - and realizes just how little she knows Elizabeth Childs. The last months had obviously been different for the two of them.

"Hey," Sarah croons, reaching for the gun slowly, keeping her eyes on Beth's. "Let's just go inside, yeah? Sit down and-and talk this out."

Beth jerks back when Sarah's fingers touch her wrist. And then, in one motion, the gun is at her own temple. Suddenly, Sarah can't hear anything but ringing, but she can hear the muffled scream that comes out of her throat between the hands she clamped over her face. She turns away as the body slumps to the ground. She curls her shoulders in around her ears, and cowers in the doorframe.

She's shaking, she might be crying, she's reliving the instant over and over in her head. Her breathing is fast and heavy. She almost falls over when the door she's leaning against is yanked inwards. She can't hear the yelling, but she can see Alison's face: the wide eyes, the much wider mouth, the quiver in her lips, the tears beginning to trickle over. She's gruffly shoved aside - hard enough for her to lose her balance and fall.

Someone is crouching down in front of her, trying to talk to her, probably, but she's still having trouble hearing. She feels faint. Her vision is going in and out. Bright, vibrant pain to the side of her face. The person slapped her. Not Alison. Cosima. Sarah's brain latches onto the name as it fights to remember how to process speech.

"Sarah," Cosima is saying over and over again, one hand gripping Sarah's tightly, the other squeezing her shoulder, anchoring her. "Sarah, hey, listen to me."

Sarah blinks and shakes her head. She happens to see around Cosima. The blood splatter against the wall, the limp form of Beth on the ground. Alison's wracking sobs moving her whole frame as she shakes Beth - as though one can just wake up from a bullet to the brain. When Alison pulls Beth's torso up, Sarah catches sight of the desolation of Beth's once-pretty face.

She promptly turns away and vomits.


	5. screaming 'it wasn't me'

"You killed her!"

Shouting. Grabbing hands. Shaking and being shaken. Roughly. Sarah's head collides with the wall with every movement. A burst of pain accompanies every word. "How - " _thunk_ " - could - " _thunk_ " - you - " _thunk_ " - do - " _thunk_ " - this?" It could be Alison's face in front of her now, but she isn't sure; her vision is swimming, she might be seeing stars, and there is black around the edges. She can't even lift her arms to fight back.

"Alison," another voice - Cosima, Sarah reminds herself - says from Sarah's right. "Alison, that's enough. Alison!"

The form in front of Sarah is pushed aside. There's a gasp, and Sarah can see Alison sitting a foot or two away now, legs spread in front of her.

"I said that's enough," Cosima growls. "Sarah didn't do this, okay?"

Alison's eyes go wide, and she leans in closer. "Oh my God," she breathes, covering her mouth with a hand. "I thought - Oh my God, you're - but where's - ?" Alison's fragmented sentences are clipped off partway, tumbling from her lips onto the floor. Sarah can almost see the words sitting there, victims of unnecessary brutality, just like Beth.

Sarah glances back and forth between the two girls seated on the floor with her, trying to avoid looking in Beth's direction at all costs. She wants to ask a question, tries to form the words, but nothing comes out. Her jaw works, her tongue moves, but there's no sound.

Cosima interprets the mute speech quickly. "She thought you were Helena."

"Helena?" Sarah's tongue has remembered how to function.

She's never met Helena, only heard from Rachel that Helena was "barbaric" and "feral." She knows Helena had poorly-dyed blonde hair at one point - though that could have been years ago with how often Rachel would have seen her. She had, however, heard the Ukranian's cries from the corridors, reaching out with claw-like fingers to dig gratingly into Sarah's ears as she passed. She always wondered if Helena was actually crazy or if the DYAD scientists were torturing her.

She wouldn't have put it past them.

Alison's eyes are bugging out of her head. Her hands move restlessly against the tile floor. Sarah wonders if maybe Alison'll try to grab her again. "You've never seen her, have you?" She scoffs, turning her face away with a mocking little smile. "Of course you haven't…"

"Alison…" Cosima cautions, raising a warning hand and tilting her head slightly.

"She looks exactly like you," Alison blurts out, rounding on Sarah again. "You're her spitting image. You must be, I don't know, twins or something."

Cosima sighs when Sarah's wide-eyed gaze falls on her. "Sorry," she says, shooting an apologetic smile - how the hell is she managing a smile in this situation? - and using her shoulders and hands to convey just how sorry she is. "I wanted to float that whole twins thing a little softer."

Alison rolls her eyes. "Well, Sarah's not exactly blameless either."

"Alison, I'm very sorry about Beth," Cosima turns her body to face the other girl, leaving Sarah with only a profile view. "But she was losing it, like, clinically. Okay? Look at her; she pulled the trigger herself. Sarah couldn't have done that - just look at her. She's in shock. And you're. Not. Helping." Her last words are soft but insistent. The directness of her gaze causes Alison to lean back a bit.

Alison, tears still drying on her cheeks, stands up, almost slipping back down again, and vanishes behind the big metal door. It slams shut, jarring Sarah's bones. Her teeth click together with the impact. But it makes her feel slightly more alive.

Cosima hunkers down against the wall across from Sarah, watching her with keen eyes from behind her glasses. "What did Beth say to you?"

Sarah shrugs, shaking her head. "She didn't say anything, really. She was going to kill me and then I told her it was me and then she froze up and-and turned on herself." Sarah folds her arms across her chest to keep in whatever shred of warmth she still possesses.

The side of Cosima's mouth dips down and she clicks her teeth together lightly. It's a nervous tic; Sarah's seen it before, though not in Cosima. "Well, there are some things you need to know about Helena."

Sarah can practically see it in all its horror; suddenly, she is Helena, the rogue survivor, the murderess. Escaping her cell when the power goes out and the emergency generator fails. Walking straight-backed and confidently down the corridor. Pouncing on anyone she comes into contact with, using her bare hands to not incapacitate but _kill_ anyone in her way. Feeling the life draining out of someone - again and again and again. Feeling that and just pushing forward, not stopping. The murder doesn't sink into her, doesn't gnaw away at her insides like a desperate thing. Instead it feels… good. In a way. Making a beeline for the kitchens, stealing a knife, using it as needed. Revenge for her pain, for her anger, for the privileges denied her in her countless years here. So she hacks and stabs and guts her way upwards, aiming for the top floor - because it's closer to God, to redemption, to feelings of power and importance, vilification. On an upper floor, she comes across Aryanna who she doesn't recognize; kills her like all the rest. Must push forward. Must find the one responsible. Leekie isn't here. Screaming, throwing furniture, breaking anything in sight, tearing through the last living people on the floor. Room to room to room. Dripping with blood that isn't her own, pushing herself from revenge to escape - finally, finally, escape. Comes face-to-face with Beth in the lobby: Beth who's stolen a gun and is shaking so much she wouldn't be able to aim it if she tried. Smiles, cocks her head, and just says, "Not yet" before turning towards the door without another glance. Watches the bullet sail past her, shattering the huge reinforced glass door in the entrance.

Sarah can feel her body trembling. No wonder Beth was bloody terrified. Sarah wasn't even there and she's scared as hell. Cosima's vivid descriptions don't help; can't she generalize a little more? Sarah pulls her knees up to wrap her arms around to keep herself from crying or screaming or throwing up again. She digs her fingernails into her calves to forget that imagined feeling of ripping through someone with a dull knife.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," Cosima croons, rising to her feet. She offers Sarah a hand. "I just - you needed to know what we're dealing with. You needed to know why. And now that you do, let's get out away from this. For a little while. Come inside, sit down. I'm sure you've got, like, a bunch to tell us." After helping her up, Cosima wraps a protective or maybe supportive arm around Sarah's waist and leads her through the large metal door.

When the door opens, Alison's head jerks up and she turns to face them. Tony, who was leisurely wandering the room, stops and watches the pair with narrowed eyes. Jennifer, perched on the arm of Alison's chair, turns slower, looking at Sarah with such a soft, motherly expression that makes Sarah's knees go weak. Only Cosima's arm keeps her upright. She has to practically be dragged to the sofa.

Jennifer stands up, glancing urgently back and forth between Sarah and Alison. Her hands hover in front of her, ready to reach out and comfort or something. When Cosima sinks down beside Sarah, Jennifer settles back beside Alison again. Tony leans against the nearby wall, just barely in Sarah's line of sight.

Sarah can't tell whose hands are shaking more: hers or Alison's. Alison's rest on the tabletop, stretched beyond where her head rests on her forearms. Her back is still trembling with the remnants of sobs. Sarah's hands are on her thighs; she tries to keep them flush to her skin, but it's difficult with the adrenaline that's still roaring through her blood. She can still feel the gun pressed against her head, still hear the ringing faintly in her ears, still feel the flecks of blood that peppered her face at impact.

She tries to focus her gaze on something, anything. Cosima sitting on the edge of a table, leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, trying to talk to Sarah, trying to ask after Rachel and the others. Her voice slips in and out of Sarah's ears; half of the one-sided conversation is lost. Tony, hovering in the background, leaning against the wall looking almost a part of it with as little as he's moving. Jennifer wandering restlessly, mothering Alison, trying to force water on the other girl, trying to get her to lay down.

When Cosima reaches out and takes Sarah's hand again, Sarah is startled. She jumps, immediately retracting her hand and drawing both into fists. Defensive. Visceral. Reactive. She lets out a long, loose breath as Cosima's many apologies wash over her, trying to relieve the tension in her shoulders.

"It's fine, Cos," Sarah mutters, her voice fighting to stay trapped. It feels like the first thing she's said since Beth died. Her world feels fundamentally different.

She could have done something. Instead, she just watched. She watched a girl - someone her age, someone she knew - put a bullet into her own brain. She could have stopped Beth from pulling away when she grabbed her wrist. She looked so weak; Sarah probably could have disarmed her if she really tried. God, why couldn't she read the situation better? Beth's dead. Elizabeth Childs is dead. She committed suicide. And Sarah let it happen.

She shakes her head and rakes her fingers through her hair, latching on with a claw-like grip about halfway down. Thinking like that will get her nowhere. She can't afford to linger on "what if"s. She can't. She centers her attention on Cosima, who's watching her with that fascinated, tilted-head expression, still leaning forward slightly.

"Where are the others?" Sarah asks, noting how Alison jerks and Jennifer looks up and Tony pushes off from the wall. But Cosima just frowns. "I found Aryanna," Sarah continues softly, fighting to keep her gaze level. _Now's not the time for emotions, Manning_ , she berates herself.

"Katja's dead, too," Cosima answers equally softly. "She was starting to get sick, but…"

Alison whips her head up, revealing puffy eyes and a tear-stained face. "Helena broke out when the power failed. She went on a-a-a killing spree. Scientists, doctors, orderlies, even us! No one was safe. She killed Katja and Aryanna - and went after…" her voice trails off and her head drops back down onto her arms.

Sarah knows what she was going to say. Beth. It all comes back to Beth.

"Is there something you want to tell us, Sarah?" Cosima asks, trying to keep an encouraging and open expression. Raised eyebrows, casual posture.

Sarah feels her eyes widen, her eyebrows converge. She shakes her head, trying to fight through the shock, think about what information she might have had at one point. "Rachel's alone in some hotel about an eight hour drive from here, but - "

"Did you see Helena on your way here? Any sign of her?" Jennifer asks, her voice soft and smooth. It would be comforting if they weren't talking about something so morbid. Soft consonants and long vowels, a bit more breathing room in every letter.

Sarah shakes her head, lightly at first, and then with increasing magnitude. "No, no, there was nothing. I was… running from my own shit." She wonders, finally, how terrible she looks after the crash, whether they see her blood on her face or only Beth's. Whether they see her face or only Helena's.

Cosima diverts the attention from Helena and, by association, Beth. "Why did you leave Rachel?"

How can she possibly explain? She can't talk about the stolen kisses or the betrayal or her infection. She can't talk about how Rachel was finally starting to behave like a real human being by the end. She can't explain why her baseless hopes drove her to abandon the only friend she's ever had besides Felix. Even if Rachel isn't really a friend. She can't put in words how her chest aches when she considers Rachel waking up in the hotel room alone, waiting with her books and her Sudoku, thinking Sarah will be back in a few hours. Finding out that Sarah isn't coming back.

So Sarah just shakes her head again. She shuts them out, these almost-strangers, and thinks about Rachel. And wonders if Rachel will care enough to come after her.

Maybe Rachel can feel anger the way she doesn't feel loneliness or love. Maybe Rachel will be angry. Maybe that anger will be enough to bring her here. Sarah hopes it is. Because something about her doesn't feel the same without that bitch standing beside her. And if they're going to be taking down a psychopath, who better to have on their side than another psychopath of a different sort?


	6. you think that no one else is lonesome

Cosima repeats the question with a little more weight, as though Sarah might have missed it due to the shock. "Why did you leave Rachel?"

Sarah forces herself to remember that these people knew Rachel Duncan - especially Cosima, who was her roommate for a time. But they didn't know the Rachel that Sarah knows. They don't know the girl who half-dragged her through abandoned streets, who broke into a pharmacy to make sure that she could get well, who spent day after day forcing antibiotics down her throat until her fever passed. Who would curl up in their shared sleeping bag. Who would snatch occasional kisses in the dark. Who worried when she woke up and Sarah wasn't in sight, even if she tried to play if off.

"We wanted different things," Sarah replies, staring down at the floor beside her boot. It isn't a lie. Rachel wanted to hole up for the winter, and Sarah wanted - no, still wants - to play vigilante. Logic versus heroics. They really would never have agreed. Sarah has to tell herself that, otherwise the small crevice in her chest that Rachel's absence created will expand; the edges will harden and it'll grow cold and make it hard to breathe. Sarah didn't betray or trick Rachel; they just "wanted different things."

"Why'd you come back, Sarah?" The question comes from Jennifer this time, and Sarah glances up to meet her gaze.

The question wasn't intended to be accusatory, but it stings nonetheless. Even Jennifer blames her for Beth. It's not Sarah's goddamn fault she's got a psychotic twin she didn't even know about. It's not her fault that Beth was losing her mind. But she still could have stopped it… No. It's not her fault.

Sarah wonders how much she should tell them. It would sound strange to say that she doesn't have a reason, that really she just wanted to escape Rachel. That she wanted to find a purpose beyond mere survival. She wanted to make sure the other miracle kids were alive, but there wasn't really a purpose to that. She decides to talk about Felix. Felix and Mrs. S and how DYAD caught her in the first place.

 

They had been hiding out, holed up in an old house out in the woods. They'd been there before, when Sarah and Felix were just kids, fresh out of Britain. Kids came and went like ocean waves and if they stayed there more than once, they weren't the same as when they left. Felix and Sarah had been constant residents for several months, while Mrs. S was gone for weeks at a time.

But now, with the plague, the house was cold and empty when they arrived. No bodies, thankfully. Sarah and Mrs. S had set up for the long haul, dragging large duffel bags of looted supplies from the truck. Clothes, food, basic medications, weapons. They had everything they needed. And the house was very defensible. Large with many windows, yes, but on high ground with a clear view of both the dirt road and the stream in the back.

They had done well for quite some time, weeks passed without a hitch. Sarah was feeling stir crazy, but better bored than dead. She and Mrs. S would talk strategies over tea after Felix went to bed. It was nice to finally have something to bond with her foster mother over, even if it was essentially just a very morbid game of chess.

Then Mrs. S started coughing. She waved it off as a cold - they hadn't really been getting a balanced diet, after all. But then she started having trouble getting up and down the stairs. Blood pooled under her fingernails until she painted over them with black polish to hide the progression of the disease. In hindsight, Sarah wants to scream about how dangerous that was. How stupid it was. How selfish.

Mrs. S would wake from nightmares in a cold sweat, with blood staining her lips. Sarah would be lingering nearby with a cool, damp towel and ever-increasing exhaustion. She would spend her nights wandering between Felix's and Mrs. S's rooms. With Mrs. S, she played doctor, and, with Felix, she played mother. She would check his fingernails, listen to his breathing, check his temperature. Hoping, praying that he wouldn't get sick. S's condition got worse and worse and worse and Sarah felt helpless and in over her head and so very isolated.

And then Felix started to cough.

Sarah, with tears in her voice - but none in her eyes because she couldn't afford to let herself start crying, not yet - told Mrs. S, "I have to get Fee to a hospital, I have to. If there's any chance, anything at all, I have to take it. I'm sorry, S. I don't want to leave you - not like this."

But Mrs. S just reached for Sarah's hands in both of hers, now turning a translucent yellow with the progression of the disease. "Go, chicken," she rasped. "Go get Felix to the doctors. Maybe they know something now."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Sarah whispered before tearing out of the room.

She shoved a bag together, enough supplies to last a few days, some clothes, matches, flashlights and batteries. Necessities. Then she pulled Felix out of bed and into S's truck, which wouldn't start. "Shit," she yelled, smashing the heel of her hand on the steering wheel, trying not to show Felix how much she wanted to cry. They were forced to walk.

Felix was so small and weak that Sarah was having to urge him and tug him forward with every step. An eleven-year-old boy shouldn't have had to make such a harsh journey. He stumbled on the gravel and slipped on the dirt, but Sarah was always there to keep him from falling, weighed down though she was by the heavy bag. Seven miles is a long trek for a malnourished child.

They arrived at the hospital, dirty and tired and Fee's cough was worsening. He tried to hide the blood spatter by wiping his hands on his pants, but Sarah noticed. Sarah always noticed. Sarah also noticed that he was sweating a lot more than he should have been; she gave his hand a tight squeeze while they waited their turn in the emergency room. Just as she suspected: a fever. His head would droop and then jerk up as he tried not to fall asleep. Sarah pulled him close, letting him rest his head on her shoulder; she spent the next hour running her finger down the center of his forehead and along the bridge of his nose. It's something she'd been doing since he was very little; it always helped him sleep.

It worried her that Felix could sleep amidst all the commotion. The E.R. was a shit-show. People were yelling and crying and pleading to be seen by doctors, while nurses and orderlies and security guards and paramedics had to forcibly hold them back. Sarah was feeling just as desperate, just as bloody terrified, as the rest of them, but Felix's needs were more important than her own anger. And so she sat with him and waited.

Eventually, they called her back. She answered the questions, dragging a semi-conscious Felix beside her, as they were led to a small gurney in the hall. They'd run out of beds.

How long has he been showing symptoms? A day or two. Does he have a history of viral infections? No. Allergies to any medications? No. Is there a family history of terminal illness? I don't know. How old is he? Eleven. Have either of you been tested for the illness before? No.

The doctor took blood and tissue samples from both Sarah and Felix and then left. Sarah stretched across the gurney, cradling Felix in her arms like she used to when he was very little. As he fell asleep, she continued stroking his nose and forehead and trying not to think about what might happen next. Eventually, exhaustion claimed her, too.

Sarah was woken by rough hands turning her onto her stomach, pressing down on her shoulders, her face. She kicked out, feeling her boot connect with something soft, hearing a groan of pain from behind her. The pressure on her torso merely increased. Her arms were wrenched back, though she tried to wriggle her way free by thrashing her shoulders and kicking more. Something cold on her wrists: handcuffs. She was yanked upright by her arms, pulled into a kneeling position. Her quads were straining with the angle of her torso to her knees. Her heart was slamming a cadence in her chest as she tried to take in her surroundings.

Three men in hazmat suits, two holding her down, one trying to figure out how to nurse a bloody nose without opening his mask. The doctor she'd seen earlier was leaning against the nurses station, covering his mouth with a hand and staring blankly at the floor. Felix was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is he?" Sarah screeched, knowing she looked wild and insane and probably more animal than human. She tried to jerk free of the hands holding her, reaching for the doctor, the only one who doesn't seem unfazed by this. "Where's my brother? What've you done to 'im?" It didn't matter what they were going to do to her, so long as Felix was safe. "Where is he?" Her voice was straining, she could feel the veins in her face bulging, one in her eye even burst as she continued to thrash and scream. "Why won't someone bloody answer me? Fee! Fee!" She started calling for Felix, hoping beyond hope that her baby brother wasn't dead - oh God, if he died. "What'd you do to 'im? What'd you do?"

The doctor ripped his hand away from his reddening face and took several steps closer to Sarah. The bloodied hazmat threw out an arm to keep him from coming closer. The doctor looked down at her - with pity or empathy, she wasn't sure - and said: "Felix is in a bed down the hall getting the best possible care we can give him."

"Can I see him?"

Sarah's sudden quiet unnerved the doctor, and he took a staggering step back. She was probably quite the sight with her bloody eye and red face and wild hair. He glanced at the suits for confirmation, and, noting how mere talk of Felix was enough to calm her, they nodded. They hoisted her up by the arms and set her down on the ground; one maintained a firm grip at all times, even when they stopped in the doorway.

Felix was sleeping, his face slack and his breathing even.

Sarah's breath came out in a whoosh, and she visibly shrank. The suits hauled her backwards and dragged her to a van in the back of the parking lot. But at least she was quiet.

 

Cosima stares at Sarah with wide eyes. Jennifer is blinking rapidly. Tony has wandered closer. Even Alison has raised her eyes to about Sarah's shoulder to gape in disbelief. Sarah feels their eyes boring into her and stands up, crossing the room, slamming a fist down on the table, tangling it in her hair. Anything to move, to keep moving. She fights to contain the anguished yell, but it crawls out of her mouth as a growl instead.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Cosima says quietly from across the room.

Sarah shoves her hair out of her face with both hands, lifting her face and closing her eyes. "Yeah, erm, foster-brother," she returns. She takes a few deep breaths and rejoins the group. "It's been such a long time, I…" Her voice cracks.

Jennifer is immediately on her feet. She wraps Sarah in a hug that Sarah isn't sure how to return. Jennifer is warm and solid, and Sarah sinks into that after a moment. She'd never exchanged two words with the girl before today, but she's suddenly impossibly glad that this sweet, motherly girl is still alive.

But Alison merely scoffs. "We've all lost someone, Sarah," she mutters bitterly.

Sarah's spine stiffens, and Jennifer backs away. Sarah's hands are quivering, curling in and out of fists. She tries to remind herself that Alison lost a friend just a little while ago, but the rage is so intense. Because it's not just rage anymore; it's pain and guilt and fear and helplessness, too.

Cosima fixes Alison with a look and turns her attention back to Sarah. "We can't just sit here like this forever. We need to go somewhere else. We need to do something. What could be better than helping Sarah look for Felix?" She nods at Sarah.

"Yes we can," Alison yelps, jerking upright. "We can't just go wandering around looking for someone who might not even be alive! We don't have supplies or weapons or-or-or anything! You'll probably never find him, and going out there with winter starting up is a suicide mission!" She lets out a little squeak at the last two words and covers her mouth with her hands. Then she shakes her head. "No, I'm staying here. Go get yourselves killed if you want; I don't care."

Tony scratches his head. "Bitch has a point, you know," he allows, huffing out a breath that could have been a sigh. "What we've got here is good; I don't wanna risk it." He gives Sarah an apologetic smile. "Sorry, girl, I really am."

Cosima and Sarah both turn to Jennifer. She's glancing at all four of them in turn; two for and two against. Her lip is quivering slightly. She sighs. "I'm sorry, Sarah, but… we're safe here."

Sarah shrugs. "I didn't come here to drag you out of here. I wanted to make sure at least some of you made it out of this alive. So, erm, yeah." She focuses on Cosima. "You don't have to come with me. Really, you don't. They're right; it's much safer here: defensible, well-stocked, empty…" Sarah trails off, looking down at the floor.

"I'm coming with you, okay?" Cosima ensures, gripping Sarah's shoulders with that same fierceness. Then she leans in a little closer and whispers, "I want to try and find a cure, and I think you can help me."


	7. so you tried to put a fire out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told from Helena's perspective.

Helena sniffs the air, filling her lungs with the cleanness, the clearness, the crisp, cold feeling of freedom. Her first breath of "unfiltered" air in years, those years spent locked in a very pretty cage with its white walls and mattress and sheets, but also its experiments and injections and incisions. But now she is free, and the air is clean, as God intended. The taste of death is faint on her tongue when her mouth drops open with every breath; faint, yes, but still there. It tastes like sin. And the sins of God's people - the people who turned their back on God, the people who looked down on Helena for her faith, her unwavering devotion - struck the people down. The plague, the coming of the end of the world, Revelation. It has come to pass and Helena, devout, pious Helena, has been chosen to live on into the Earth's rebirth. Or, perhaps, ascend to Heaven.

The tide of death ripples around her ankles like a river of blood. And she, as Moses before her, is unfazed. God has chosen her, God has protected her. And she will continue to pursue God's mission. For if God allowed her to live, surely He has agreed that her thoughts and desires are pure, that she should outlive the apocalypse and the coming of the greatest disaster the world has ever seen. She will be as Noah, left to choose who lives and dies.

Because God is whispering in her ear - she knows it must be God - to kill. And who is she to question God? She has killed mercilessly for him before, under the guiding (but corrupt, surely, surely corrupt) hand of Tomas. So he must be next.

Her feet scrape along the pavement, the sound of it ringing in Helena's ears like the resonant friction of metal sliding against bone. And she smiles with her success and her mission because God has a plan for her, just as He had a plan for the poor, sad, desperate Elizabeth Childs when He whispered in Helena's ear to spare her. Because God knows. He always knows. Her body leads her, limping, lopsided, tripping with disuse, towards the harbor, towards the large metal cage that served to silence her screams once upon a time.

She has not seen Tomas in years now. Not since she was a child - though she remains a child now, a child of God. Tomas must surely have survived the wave of death with its invisible blade and silent hands, because surely God must want to grant Helena the satisfaction of revenge.

A reward for her services.

Two eyes as a token for all that she has been made to suffer. Blood as payment for all the blood she has willingly given. His hands for all the times he struck her when she did no wrong. Tomas shall pay. And God shall look on.

And smile.

Helena knows the harbor by the taste of salt which still cannot overwhelm the faint hint of death. She can smell it and feel it. It is charged electricity in her human flesh, her human bones. But it is also anger and flaring heat in her ethereal soul. Because Tomas is near. She can feel him - because surely he cannot be dead. Because surely, surely she deserves this. A reward, a payment. For God is a gracious master whom she has voluntarily served.

"Do not play with your food, Helena," he used to snap with a hard blow to the back of her head. "Kill them quickly; it will not do to let them catch you before all the sheep are dead." Because the sheep, God's chosen victims, have been rounded up and Helena was to be sent in after them. But then she was taken, and she was kept caged; oh how she hates cages.

But she will return - to the place where all of them were caged, separately or together, separated by empty space and the sound of Helena's own desperate cries. After Tomas, she will return. Because now she has suffered enough - enough to be a martyr maybe, enough for the voice of God to penetrate her thoughts directly, to guide her with His will and His wishes. It is as it should have been. But Helena understands the art of suffering; she had been schooled in it forever. Forever, forever, the darkness of the catacombs of Tomas's boat, the sound of her anguished cries echoing back at her like the voices of the sheep she killed. The chill of metal beneath her skin as she bled. Yes, yes, Helena understands suffering. And so Tomas, too, will suffer for his sins.

It is God's will.

She steps from crisp sunshine to the sudden darkness of the metal beast. A behemoth of rust and iron, smelling of salt and blood, ringing and clanging and growling with her every footstep. She holds her knife against her stomach, knowing that to hold it out is to risk having it taken. But she can feel the smile quivering in her teeth. Because Tomas's sins will have made him weak, just as Helena is immune. He will stumble under the weight of his rage and his jealousy, and she will enact revenge.

The labyrinthine passages curl around the heart of the ship, and Helena can hear the _scritchscritchscritching_ of rats in the walls and the pipes which no longer function. It is cold inside. Helena doesn't shiver; Helena has God's will to keep her warm. Her bare toes curl around the raised notches in the paneling on the floor.

The door to the cabin creaks when she drags it open, its hinges groaning in protest to the disturbance. Tomas used to make Helena oil the hinges. She moves through the darkness, embracing it and the familiarity it provides. But the smell of sin is too strong.

She lights the oil lamp, which is where it has always been, and she cries out in anguish. Tomas is there, in bed, eyes white with the blindness that God gave him on Helena's behalf, face lined with bloody scratches from where he tried to claw himself apart. Helena plunges her knife into his throat - hoping the rage will dissipate, hoping that just the act will save her from the beast rearing its head within her. It doesn't even sound right.

She throws herself around the room, leaving naught but destruction in her wake. The lamp is the last thing to go. The papers and books and clothes go up in flames, and she stalks out, wanting to yell and scream and tug out her hair. Because God has slighted her, He has broken His promise of revenge. And now He still expects her servitude, without reward, without justification. She grabs at her clothes, feeling the tears in her eyes that she cannot explain.

He has wronged her, He has wronged her, and now she has nothing left.

She stumbles from the empty ship, eyes blurring with hunger, with exhaustion, with pain. And she sees figures in the harbor, she sees two people who are alive but not from God's choice. They must not be. For they are naked and they are touching and they are tainting themselves with each other's filth. And Helena refuses to let it continue.


End file.
